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Creation in the Prophetic Literature of the Old Testament: an Intertextual Approach

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Creation in the Prophetic Literature of the Old Testament: an Intertextual Approach CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Andrews University Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, 20/1-2 (2009):19-54. Article copyright © 2009 by Martin G. Klingbeil. Creation in the Prophetic Literature of the Old Testament: An Intertextual Approach Martin G. Klingbeil Helderberg College South Africa 1. Introduction The topic of creation in Old Testament theology for most of its recent history has been neglected and has often been relegated to the level of a subheading within the sections of soteriology, covenant, trinity, or any other possibly relevant section: “Nevertheless, creation to this day has been one of the ‘proverbial step-children’ in the recent discipline of Old Testament theology.”1 While Rendtorff only diagnoses the problem, Brueggemann, in looking for a rationale, refers the responsibility for the peripheral position of creation in theology to the dichotomy between the Israelite faith and Canaanite religion, or history and myth, that found its way into biblical theology during the earlier part of the last century through scholars like Gerhard von Rad in Europe who suggested that creation was 1 Rolf Rendtorff, “Some Reflections on Creation as a Topic of Old Testament Theology,” in Priests, Prophets and Scribes. Essays on the Formation and Heritage of Second Temple Judaism in Honour of Joseph Blenkinsopp (ed. Eugene Ulrich, John W. Wright, Robert P. Carroll and Philip R. Davies; JSOTSS 149; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), 204-12. 19 JOURNAL OF THE ADVENTIST THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY subservient to salvation,2 or Ernest Wright in the USA who maintained that “Israel was little interested in nature.”3 A number of scholars moved beyond the paradigm created by von Rad4 and recognized the prominence of creation in the theological thinking of the Old Testament, both in terms of position and content. Claus Westermann in his work on Gen 1-11 places creation in history through its expression in myth and ritual. Thus it is the primeval event, and the stories told about and enacted upon it, are part of the universal traditions of mankind. The biblical authors–for Westermann the Yahwist and the Priestly author–adapted these stories theologically for Israel and identified them as part of God’s work of blessing which for Westermann “really means the power of Fertility.”5 In direct and intentional contrast with von Rad, the doctrine has been described as the horizon of biblical theology by Hans Heinrich Schmid. He relates creation to world-order and by comparing it with creation beliefs in other ANE cultures he arrives at the conclusion that history is the 2 “Our main thesis was that in genuinely Yahwistic belief the doctrine of creation never attained to the stature of a relevant, independent doctrine. We found it invariably related, and indeed subordinated, to soteriological considerations.” Gerhard von Rad, “The Theological Problem of the O.T. Doctrine of Creation,” in Creation in the Old Testament (ed. Bernhard W. Anderson; Issues in Religion and Theology 6; Philadelphia and London: Fortress and SPCK, 1984), 62. The article was originally published in 1936. 3 G. Ernest Wright, The Old Testament Against its Environment (London: SCM, 1950), 71. Von Rad saw creation as a very late addition to the theological construct of the Old Testament. Brueggemann maintains that von Rad’s conclusions were framed by the socio- cultural context of the 1930s with the struggle between the German Church and National Socialism which promulgated a “Blood and soil” religion that played towards Canaanite fertility religion. Concludes Brueggemann: “The work of Gerhard von Rad and G. Ernest Wright, taken up, advanced, and echoed by numerous scholars, articulated a radical either/or of history versus nature, monotheism versus polytheism, and ethical versus cultic categories.” Walter Brueggemann, “The Loss and Recovery of Creation in Old Testament Theology,” Theology Today 53 (1996): 179. 4 “OT scholarship is nearly unanimous in regarding creation faith in ancient Israel as chronologically late and theologically secondary.” Hans Heinrich Schmid, “Creation, Righteousness, and Salvation: ‘Creation Theology’ as the Broad Horizon of Biblical Theology,” in Creation in the Old Testament (ed. Bernhard W. Anderson; Issues in Religion and Theology 6; Philadelphia and London: Fortress and SPCK, 1984), 103. 5 Claus Westermann, “Creation and History in the Old Testament,” in The Gospel and Human Destiny (ed. Vilmos Vajta; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1971), 32. 20 KLINGBEIL: CREATION IN PROPHETIC LITERATURE realization of this order.6 “Only within this horizon could Israel understand its special experiences with God in history.”7 One wonders if Schmid is not committing the mistake of earlier biblical theologians in looking for the Mitte of the Old Testament and finding it in creation.8 Nevertheless, it appears that in most cases the dating of texts lies at the bottom of the question as to where to position creation within the framework of Old Testament theology. While the Bible begins with creation, biblical theologies mostly do not, since traditional critical approaches to Old Testament texts do not allow for an early dating of the Urgeschichte (Gen 1-11).9 Most of these studies, von Rad’s included, have rather taken Isaiah 40-55, the so-called Deutero-Isaiah, dated by literary criticism to post-exilic times, as a chronologically secure paradigm for creation in the Old Testament against which other texts, amongst them Gen 1-3, are then bench-marked.10 This leads inevitably to the conclusion that creation is a late addition to the theological thinking of the Old 6 Schmid arrives at that conclusion by paralleling the Hebrew hq'd'c. ‘righteousness’ with the Egyptian ma‘at ‘world-order’. For a critique of his position, see Stefan Paas, Creation & Judgement: Creation Texts in Some Eighth Century Prophets (Oudtestamentische Studiën 47; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2003), 10-14. 7 Ibid., 12. 8 See, for example, Smend who considers the doctrine of election to be pivotal in Old Testament theology. Rudolf Smend, Die Mitte des Alten Testaments: Gesammelte Studien, Bd. 1 (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1986). Recent theologies of the Old Testament have moved away from this approach. Hasel comments: “An OT theology which recognizes God as the dynamic, unifying center provides the possibility to describe the rich and variegated theologies and to present the various longitudinal themes, motifs, and ideas. In affirming God as the dynamic, unifying center of the OT we also affirm that this center cannot be forced into a static organizing principle on the basis of which an OT theology can be constructed.” Gerhard F. Hasel, Old Testament Theology: Basic Issues in the Current Debate (3rd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 142. 9 Blenkinsopp summarizes the traditional view of source criticism with regard to Gen 1-11: “According to the documentary critics this [Gen 1:1-2:3] is the first paragraph of the P source. With very few exceptions … , these critics have read the early history of humanity [Gen 1-11] as a conflation of an early J and a late P source… .” Joseph Blenkinsopp, The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible (Anchor Bible Reference Library; New York: Doubleday, 1992), 60. 10 Comments Paas: “The reason why an inquiry into creation in the Old Testament often begins with Deutero-Isaiah is obvious. About the dating of the Psalms and even the stories of the beginning there is much less agreement.” Paas, Creation & Judgement, 14. 21 JOURNAL OF THE ADVENTIST THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY Testament.11 Implicit in this approach is the danger of circular reasoning, since creation texts are being dated on the basis of religious historical paradigms as late and are then used to date other creation passages accordingly: It is obviously somewhat paralyzing to realize that we form a picture of Israel’s religious history in part on the basis of certain texts which, in turn, with the help of the picture obtained by historical research, we subsequently judge with respect to ‘authenticity’ and historical truth.12 Recognizing the unsatisfying results of such a dating scheme that is further informed by a particular school of thought with regard to Israelite religious history,13 an approach to the topic of creation in the Old Testament should depart from a contextual reading of the texts in question in the various bodies of Old Testament literature. The prophetic literature of the Old Testament provides a rich tapestry for such a reading, since the implicit nature of prophecy in the Old Testament is reformative in nature, i.e., referring back to the historic deeds of Yahweh in the past (creation, exodus, conquest, etc.) and thus motivating a return to him in the respective present. While there are studies that have touched on the subject of creation in individual prophetic books,14 there is 11 With reference to von Rad’s 1936 article, Brueggemann comments: “It was in this article … that von Rad asserted that ‘the doctrine of creation’ was peripheral to the Old Testament, and that the Old Testament was not, at least until very late, at all interested in creation per se.” Brueggemann, “The Loss and Recovery of Creation,” 178. 12 Paas, Creation & Judgement, 29. 13 “But today the problems of dating the texts as well as the problem of the age of creation traditions in Israel are more controversial then ever.” Rendtorff, “Some Reflections on Creation,” 208. 14 For example: Walter Brueggemann, “Jeremiah: Creatio in Extremis,” in God who Creates: Essays in Honor of W. Sibley Towner (eds. William P. Brown and S. Dean McBride Jr.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 152-70; Richard J. Clifford, “The Unity of the Book of Isaiah and its Cosmogonic Language,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 55 (1993): 1-17; Stephen L. Cook, “Creation Archetypes and Mythogems in Ezekiel: Significance and Theological Ramifications,” in SBL Seminar Papers, 1999 (Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 38; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 123-46; Andrew A.
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